I’ve never done this sort of thing before, so bear with me. Confession is hard to do.

I guess we’re supposed to talk about our journey right? I was always a big kid. I wore “husky” jeans from Sears when I was a kid, but I don’t think I was your stereotypical fat kid. I was highly active and solid. My Mom is a nurse so for the most part we were aware of what was healthy and what wasn’t growing up, and candy was a real treat. Moreso, fast food was a luxury. In hind sight I don’t know if that was simply because it was bad for us, or if my parents just hated buying food? Regardless, the rare trip to McDonald’s or Burger King was a joy. As I recall, I was about 190 lbs heading in to high school, I played football and rode BMX constantly…

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One of the buzziest of the buzziest buzz words in fitness – the “core.” Right up there in the 8-Minute Abs, Six-Pack Solution and all of the other gimmicks we see and hear.

What mainstream media calls the core isnt import but the actual “core” is very important, don’t get me wrong at all.

Actually, in Twoguns Training Systems, the most important part of the workout is the RAMP (Range of Motion, Activation and Movement Prep) aka our version of the warm up, but immediately following that is the second most important part of the workout and that is the core section. It is prioritized as the first portion of strength training in all of our programs.

Now the problem is how misused and abused the term “core” is. When people generally think about the core all they think about is the rectus abdominus aka the “six pack” muscle, the…

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I’ll be tilling and planting my garden today. I’m thinking tomatoes, zucchini, green peppers, cabbage, broccoli and corn. I love that in recent years gardening has re-emerged. Seems that in the 00’s it was on the downturn, no one really grew their own food as much any more instead trusting in the markets to provide fresh produce. I think that may have greatly spread the various e.coli outbreaks of that decade and conversely those outbreaks have led to more people growing produce.
I’ll post up some pics later!

At first glance, the answer is clearly fiction. Take a step back and listen to what Melo and Amare had to say after the “resignation” and you can tell that the answer is a resounding TRUE. The only person who I think wouldn’t admit to not buying into the system is Melo. The core of the D’Antoni-Melo-drama (see what I did there?) was rooted in Melo’s coaching upbringing. Under Jim Boeheim at ‘cuse he was basically allowed to run roughshod on the court, and it worked. In Denver, he played for George Karl, the world’s foremost “player’s coach”. D’Antoni is a system guy, and you have to fit into his system or you don’t succeed. Melo don’t play that.

2. Fact or Fiction: More Melo will be good for the Knicks’ offense.

Fiction. A more efficient Melo will be good for the Knicks offense. Nothing more needs to be said on this.

3. Fact or Fiction: Linsanity is history.

Of course it is. So is Tebow-mania. It happens, and it has to happen so the team can operate normally. Statistically, Lin isn’t doing much different than he did in his debut games, it’s just that the (Tomlin-ism incoming) “standard of expectation has changed”. This guy blew in, started running the offense and averaging around 15/8 a game. Ok, you’ve done that Jeremy, what’s next? That’s what this world is all about. You’ll see Linsanity in full throat if the Knicks can get through the first round, or damnit at least to a game 5.

4. Fact or Fiction: The Knicks will make some noise in the playoffs.

Faction. That’s right I’m making it up. With three decisive wins under Woodson, things certainly look promising, but that’s not entirely uncommon for a coaching change. We won’t have any idea how to predict this until they face some adversity, and I don’t mean on the court. Certainly the Pacers are a worthy adversary. If Woodson keeps peace in the locker room, he’ll have a happy court. Then they’ll see real adversity on the court without that excitement and energy that comes from the players getting what they want.

5. Fact or Fiction: Phil Jackson will and should be the next N.Y. coach.

Kobe, Fisher, Shaq. Jordan, Pippen, and whoever the hell the center was. Melo, Lin, Chandler? Wait, what about Amare? I’m not sure this team is built for the triangle, and neither Jackson nor the Knicks fans have any tolerance for rebuilding again.

As an addendum on this stolen story, much has been said of the performance of the bench players under Woodson. Looking back on the seven games of Linsanity, the bench was the key. The stars were on the sideline and the bench got major minutes. Utilizing the talent on the bench of this team has to be the key going forward.

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Since the explosion of text messaging years ago, people have lamented the lack of inter-personal contact. People will sit in the same room and text or IM each other instead of turning around and speaking to each other. Most of this has come from Baby Boomers and those who do not engage in regular messaging and despite being raised with computers have resisted them and refuse to learn anything about it. I do not think that this era of texting, instant contact and social media has caused us, as a species, to move further apart. It has actually ushered us into a new era of contact never before achieved.

Text messaging was invented in 1992 by a guy named Neil Papworth. Poor Neil didn’t think to patent his new technology, otherwise he might be one of the richest men in the world right now. In 1992, many people still had pagers and pay phones were on nearly every corner. You could even see a Mercedes idling at a drive-up phone after pumping $1.05 a gallon gas and filling the car for $15. Personally, I got a pager when I was 15 and had that until I was 17 (1995-1997). Cell phones were catching on at that point, and even some people in high school started getting them. I recall most people didn’t even know about texting, there was no such thing as a texting plan and surprisingly, IT WAS FREE!

I think I sent my first texts in maybe 1998. I was working at a pizza shop and I’d send messages to people who’d have no idea how to get them, and they’d be annoyed at having an envelope on their screen that they couldn’t get rid of. In fact, it was a Nokia, I can’t remember the model. Two color screen, back lit buttons. I didn’t have a phone with a color screen until 2001, it was a Kyocera. I’ll stop with the history of phones I’ve had.

This age of instant communication can be daunting and hard to keep up with. I resisted Facebook and Twitter, but now I use both regularly. To many, the perpetual feed of information is overwhelming and it causes them to just turn off and walk away. It’s certainly not for everyone. However, just because we’re not speaking face to face doesn’t mean that it’s not the same sort of contact. Facebook has enabled me to reconnect with and converse with people that I haven’t seen in 15 years. We of the “Y” generation (a term I always hated) are coming up in a world that couldn’t be more disconnected with the traditions of Boomers and 40-50 somethings today. Personally, every single one of the guys I hung out with in High School moved out of town. Conversely, my 50 year old neighbor can probably name 20 people he went to high school with that he sees regularly around town.

Social media has been bred of necessity. Unless we want to spend every waking minute on the phone, there is no other way to stay in contact with so many people who are spread so far apart. At no time in the history of mankind have we been so in touch with each other. In order to communicate more we would actually need to have some sort of psychic ability. It’s surely easy to resent this at times, though, as being constantly reachable can be quite a burden. I’m not sure what can surpass this, what is next, but I’m sure that I’ll complain about the good old days of texting when I don’t want to learn about it.